US8520262B2 - Post color conversion mechanism for gray/black text and graphics objects - Google Patents
Post color conversion mechanism for gray/black text and graphics objects Download PDFInfo
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- US8520262B2 US8520262B2 US12/619,861 US61986109A US8520262B2 US 8520262 B2 US8520262 B2 US 8520262B2 US 61986109 A US61986109 A US 61986109A US 8520262 B2 US8520262 B2 US 8520262B2
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
- G06K15/00—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers
- G06K15/02—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers using printers
- G06K15/18—Conditioning data for presenting it to the physical printing elements
- G06K15/1801—Input data handling means
- G06K15/1822—Analysing the received data before processing
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- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
- G06K15/00—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers
- G06K15/02—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers using printers
- G06K15/18—Conditioning data for presenting it to the physical printing elements
- G06K15/1867—Post-processing of the composed and rasterized print image
- G06K15/1872—Image enhancement
- G06K15/1878—Adjusting colours
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
- G06K15/00—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers
- G06K15/02—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers using printers
- G06K15/18—Conditioning data for presenting it to the physical printing elements
- G06K15/1867—Post-processing of the composed and rasterized print image
- G06K15/1872—Image enhancement
- G06K15/1878—Adjusting colours
- G06K15/188—Adjusting colours with provisions for treating some of the print data differently
Definitions
- This invention relates generally to the field of printing systems. More particularly, the invention relates to managing and controlling ink usage in a color printing system.
- Print systems include presentation architectures that are provided for representing documents in a data format that is independent of the methods that are utilized to capture or create those documents.
- presentation systems include Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript (PS).
- PDF Portable Document Format
- PS PostScript
- documents may include mixed content data objects (e.g., combinations of text, image, graphics, etc.).
- print systems perform color printing using a combination of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K) color inks or toners.
- C cyan
- M magenta
- Y yellow
- K black
- mixed content input color data objects received at a print system are rendered using all colorants.
- black or gray text/graphics (e.g., non image object) and image objects are both processed and printed with CMYK.
- black and gray text/graphics often includes undesirable CMYK black/gray combinations. Such combinations are undesirable because it results in substantial use of C, M and Y ink to print various shades of black and gray. Since C, M and Y ink or toners are each expensive, the unnecessary use of these colors results in wasted resources. Furthermore, black/gray text, and line art printed with all CMYK may not be appealing to customers especially when black text is printed.
- a method in one embodiment, includes receiving color data for an object to be printed and performing post color processing for each pixel in the object if the object is a non-image object, while no processing is performed if the object is an image object.
- Post color processing is performed by determining if a pixel is black or gray and converting the pixel to K only black color if the pixel is black or gray.
- a printer in another embodiment, includes a control unit having a color management unit to perform color mapping and determine color intensities for each pixel in an object to be printed and a post color processing unit.
- the post color processing unit converts each pixel in the object to K only black color if the pixel is black or gray and leaves the pixel unchanged if the pixel is not black or gray.
- FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a printing system
- FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a control unit
- FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of a graphical user interface
- FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of the operation of a color conversion mechanism.
- FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment for performing post color processing.
- FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a printing system 100 .
- Printing system 100 includes a print application 110 , a server 120 and printer 130 .
- Printer 130 includes a control unit 150 and a print engine 160 .
- Print application 110 makes a request for the printing of a document.
- print application 110 provides PostScript (PS) and PDF files for printing to print server 120 .
- PS PostScript
- control unit 150 processes and renders objects received from print server 120 and provides sheet maps for printing to print engine 160 .
- FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a control unit 150 .
- Control unit 150 includes a rasterizer 200 having color management unit 210 , post color processing unit 220 , as well as other units that will not be described herein.
- Rasterizer 200 is implemented to process image objects received at control unit 150 by performing a raster image process (RIP) to convert an image described in a vector graphics format (e.g., shapes) into a raster image (e.g., pixels) for output to print engine 160 .
- Color management unit 210 provides a color mapping from a source to a destination color space.
- color management unit 210 uses ICC profiles to perform the mapping to determine CMYK values for each pixel in a particular object to be printed at print engine 160 .
- Post color processing unit 220 provides post color conversion for non image objects received from color management unit 210 .
- post color processing unit 220 receives and performs post color conversion on received device input data.
- post color processing unit 220 distinguishes between image and text/graphics objects to determine if post color conversion may be appropriate. If deemed appropriate, post color processing unit 220 converts black/gray text/graphics objects to K only ink, while leaving image and color text/graphics objects unchanged to be printed with all CMYK colors. Note that in other embodiments, the black/gray text/graphics objects may be converted to processed black/gray.
- post color conversion may be enabled or disabled by an operator at printer 130 using a Graphical User Interface (GUI) 170 .
- GUI Graphical User Interface
- FIG. 3 illustrates one embodiment of a screenshot of GUI 170 interface.
- an activation configuration value color.textlinework.konly
- a black threshold value color.textlinework.konly.kthreshold
- a gray threshold value color.textlinework.konly.graythreshold
- the black and gray threshold values are each used to compare to post color conversion text/graphics object data, as discussed below.
- the threshold values are set to a manufacturer default and may be modified by authorized operators. Thus, the range of gray/black may be changed without having to modify code at printer 130 .
- FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of the operation of a post color processing unit 220 .
- object data is received at post color processing unit 220 from color management unit 210 or from a device input.
- decision block 420 it is determined whether the object is an image. If the object is an image, no post color processing is performed.
- post color processing is enabled (e.g., color.textlinework.konly set to on), decision block 440 . If post color processing is disabled no post color processing is performed, processing block 430 . However, if enabled, post color processing is performed for each pixel in the object, processing block 450 .
- FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment for performing post color processing.
- the color of the pixel is not dark (e.g., K ⁇ color.textlinework.konly.kthreshold)
- decision block 540 is implemented by calculating values r 1 and r 2 and comparing each of those values to the gray threshold value.
- r 1
- and r 2
- r 3
- and r 2
- the above-described color conversion mechanism assists in preserving C, M and Y ink resources by converting black and gray non image objects to K only objects.
- Embodiments of the invention may include various steps as set forth above.
- the steps may be embodied in machine-executable instructions.
- the instructions can be used to cause a general-purpose or special-purpose processor to perform certain steps.
- these steps may be performed by specific hardware components that contain hardwired logic for performing the steps, or by any combination of programmed computer components and custom hardware components.
- Elements of the present invention may also be provided as a machine-readable medium for storing the machine-executable instructions.
- the machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, floppy diskettes, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, propagation media or other type of media/machine-readable medium suitable for storing electronic instructions.
- the present invention may be downloaded as a computer program which may be transferred from a remote computer (e.g., a server) to a requesting computer (e.g., a client) via a communication link (e.g., a modem or network connection).
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- Color Image Communication Systems (AREA)
Abstract
Description
Claims (13)
Priority Applications (1)
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US12/619,861 US8520262B2 (en) | 2009-11-17 | 2009-11-17 | Post color conversion mechanism for gray/black text and graphics objects |
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US12/619,861 US8520262B2 (en) | 2009-11-17 | 2009-11-17 | Post color conversion mechanism for gray/black text and graphics objects |
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US20110116138A1 US20110116138A1 (en) | 2011-05-19 |
US8520262B2 true US8520262B2 (en) | 2013-08-27 |
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US12/619,861 Expired - Fee Related US8520262B2 (en) | 2009-11-17 | 2009-11-17 | Post color conversion mechanism for gray/black text and graphics objects |
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Cited By (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US20130038884A1 (en) * | 2011-08-11 | 2013-02-14 | Consolidated Graphics, Inc. | In-process color management system and method for digital color printing |
US20130128289A1 (en) * | 2011-08-11 | 2013-05-23 | Consolidated Graphics, Inc. | System and method for tuning device link profiles for color printing |
Families Citing this family (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US9633461B2 (en) * | 2015-02-24 | 2017-04-25 | Artifex Software Inc. | System and method for color management of mixed content documents |
KR20200025536A (en) * | 2018-08-30 | 2020-03-10 | 휴렛-팩커드 디벨롭먼트 컴퍼니, 엘.피. | Color conversion based on color space and object properties |
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2009
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US20110116138A1 (en) | 2011-05-19 |
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